Cheat Awakening-Chapter 714 - . The Price of Hope

Mr. Red and the others walked up the stairs, looking around with discomfort. A large number of survivors watched them from the cracks in the doors, their eyes reflecting numbness, fear, and a hint of expectation and even greed.

"Are these the survivors of the tower? Why do most of them seem so weak? Their eyes are so strange; I feel a chill down my back," Achoo whispered, a tremor of fear in his voice. "Some are afraid, but they also seem to expect something from us?"

A man with a messy beard led Mr. Red and the others inside. He glanced back at the people and said in a casual tone, "Because... you are outsiders."

Several people were slightly stunned and exchanged surprised looks.

"Outsiders? What does that mean?" Shiny Star, who had been almost glued to Magmascorch since he looked small and easy to bully and wasn't as cold as the others, finally spoke. After all, both Ache and Achoo were cat people and had no interest in human women, avoiding her as if she carried some incurable disease.

As for Mr. Red, he was too bulky for her small body size, and he himself didn't give her a second glance, making it even more impossible to get close to him. In the end, although she had heard many bad stories about goblins who liked to use women of other races as breeding machines, at least he didn't push her away. Currently, saving her life was the most important thing, so she could only stay close to him while hiding her disgust deep in her heart.

Mr. Red, who was walking in front, remained calm and was not disturbed by the man's statement or the strange looks of the people. Instead, he asked calmly, "Where are you taking us now?"

"To see the leader of the tower. He will explain the situation to you."

The bearded man's attitude was a bit strange. He wasn't very enthusiastic, even a bit wary, but he seemed to want something from them.

Everyone's expression shifted again, but they didn't ask any more questions and chose to follow him upstairs. When they reached the top floor, they entered a spacious, old room. Next to a simple desk, an old man with sparse hair, his face full of wrinkles, sat in a wheelchair reading a book. After everyone entered, he gently closed the book and looked at them.

"Hello, everyone," The old man said with a gentle smile. "Sorry, the place is a little small, and supplies are scarce. There is nothing to entertain you with."

Ache looked at the old man, confused and wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. "Old man, are you the leader of the tower?"

"Yes," The old man said slowly. "My name is Victor. You want to know the situation of the tower and the outside world, right?"

"Well," Ache nodded hesitantly. The old man seemed to know something about them and directly predicted their next step.

"I can tell you," The old man said softly, "But before that, please forgive my rudeness."

"Be careful!" Hearing the old man's words, Mr. Red frowned and warned.

Suddenly, about a dozen people holding guns emerged from hiding places nearby, their black muzzles pointed at everyone's heads.

Everyone's face changed slightly, and Ache quickly said, waving his hands, "Respected tower leader, we don't have any bad intentions."

"We don't have any bad intentions either," A one-eyed old man gunman with a cigarette in his mouth and a scarf tied around his forehead said hoarsely, tightening his grip on his gun. Anyone seeing his expression would find it hard to believe his words.

Achoo couldn't help but say, "You call it not having any bad intentions when so many of you are pointing guns at us for no reason..."

He looked around and was suddenly stunned. Because most of the gunmen in the room were old, weak, sick, and disabled, with rotting parts on their bodies. Some couldn't even hold their guns steadily.

The few young men present also had bandaged wounds, and only the one-eyed gunman seemed able to stand still and looked relatively normal.

Everyone couldn't help but be a little surprised by their condition.

"Because we are afraid that you have bad intentions. After all, as you can see, we are not in good condition," The bearded man said calmly. "So sorry, let us have a conversation under these circumstances first."

Mr. Red calmed down his teammates, who were a little agitated because of the guns. "Alright, we are all ears."

"Thank you for your understanding... Cough. Cough cough!" The old man, who was in poor health, coughed, a wet, rattling sound that ended in a few sharp, bloody hacks into his handkerchief.

He raised a trembling hand, halting the nervous movements of the others. His face, etched with lines like tangled tree roots, tightened with a painful memory. His voice, already hoarse, grew rougher as he spoke. "Twenty years ago, in this very city of Srinka, a terrible infectious virus erupted. Anyone infected would become the zombies you see outside."

"And from among those zombies, another, more terrifying monster was born. We call it the Nightwalker. You should have encountered this powerful creature."

"Yes, it is indeed very powerful," Achoo said in a low voice, a shadow crossing his face. They, too, had lost a teammate to it.

"Humans are utterly defenceless against such a monster, but fortunately, they can only move in the dark and are deeply vulnerable to sunlight. So, we use this tower as our sanctuary, scavenging for supplies during the day and employing ultraviolet light to ward off the Nightwalkers' nocturnal assaults."

The old man cast a gentle look towards one of the young men clutching a gun. "People of their generation have known no other world."

"No," Shiny Star interjected, unable to contain himself. "We saw a dead, rotting corpse on the bus earlier. It was the bus driver. If twenty years had passed, shouldn't he have turned to bones by now?"

"That is the horrifying nature of this virus," The bearded man said grimly. "None of the zombies they infect ever truly die. Even if their heads are severed during the day, once night falls, those fallen zombies will rise again!"

A wave of unease rippled through the guards. "This is like a curse," One of them muttered.

"Endless hordes of zombies and the terrifying Nightwalkers – it was a vision of hell."

"We have been trapped in this terrible despair for twenty years," The old man spoke, his eyes clouding over slightly. "We believed it would continue indefinitely, but ten years ago, a group of outsiders suddenly appeared in this city, from who knows where." freёweɓnovel.com

"Outsiders!"

A fresh wave of shock rippled through players. They had heard this word from the bearded man before, sensing then that something was amiss. Now, their unease solidified into a certainty: things were far more complicated than they had initially grasped.

Oblivious to the inner turmoil of his listeners, the old man continued.

"They appeared as suddenly as you did, wearing clothes completely unlike ours, speaking an incomprehensible language. Each possessed weapons and individual strength far beyond ordinary people. Vast numbers of zombies were no match for them. They were also utterly ruthless, dispatching zombies as if they were swatting ants."

Except for Mr. Red, astonishment etched itself onto every face.

That's right, those people are players like them. If they can't guess those people's identities by now, then they should just hand themselves over to the zombies.

"At that time, we believed our saviours had arrived. They were so powerful; we dared to hope they could deliver us from this nightmare." The old man sighed, covering his face with a weary palm. "But unfortunately, they failed."

"Since then, a group of outsiders like this appears every year. Although we have no idea where they come from, for everyone in the tower, they represent our only hope. So, we naturally support them with all our strength." The old man spoke with a quiet resignation. "We almost succeeded once, but we still failed, and the cost was immense."

Ache frowned, unable to hold back his question. "If that's the case, why are you treating us like this?"

"Because of the group of outsiders last year!" Someone hissed, his voice thick with anger. "Those motherf*ckers were a pack of monsters!"

All the Players noticed the fear, anger, and other complex emotions swirling in the eyes of the tower residents.

Shiny Star couldn't help but ask, "What did they do?"

It stands to reason that if they were players, they would generally follow the main quest and seek help from local factions, avoiding excessive harm to NPCs. After all, in this gaming world, almost every dungeon seems to be a slice of hell, with the natives leading miserable lives, either suffering or already fallen into the abyss and joined dark forces. Therefore, most players tend to have a decent attitude towards these poor NPCs.

The bearded man's voice was hoarse and trembling. He slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump, before speaking in a furious tone.

"They... they treated us all like insects, using their power to force us into being bait. For their twisted amusement, they used the lives of ordinary people for experiments, contaminated our food with infected viruses, and even brought zombies into this tower, which we have defended for twenty years, to watch us fight to the death while they laughed. They raped our daughters and wives, killing them if they showed any resistance."

The old leader's fingers were white-knuckled as he gripped the wheelchair armrests. For a moment, he looked capable of murder, but seeing the fearful faces around him, he forced himself to calm down and spoke again, his voice heavy and strained.

"Last year, the tower had a population of 311. This year... only 139 remain, and even among us, most are old, weak, sick, and disabled."